OLYMPIA — Bipartisan negotiations may have broken the Senate gridlock over how to fix problems with the state’s roads and bridges, generating a plan to spend nearly $15 billion over 16 years, including about $970 million in the Spokane area.

OLYMPIA — Major changes to the state’s largely unregulated medical marijuana industry passed the Senate after sponsors beat back a challenge to requirements for a patient database and a plea to let recreational users grow their own.

SALEM, Ore. — Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber announced his resignation Friday, ending weeks of speculation about whether he could lead the state with the cloud of at least two investigations into possible ethical breaches hanging over his head.

PORT ORCHARD — A 67-year-old Bremerton woman known as “Miss Potter,” who has convictions for crack and meth, was charged Tuesday with second-degree promoting prostitution as part of a human-trafficking sting in November.

A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals was highly skeptical Monday of arguments on behalf of a Coeur d’Alene woman that NSA cell phone surveillance violates her constitutional right to privacy.